Nathan Bedford Forrest
Can God forgive anyone? Is there any sinner beyond His reach? Nathan Bedford Forrest has a notorious reputation, much of it earned fairly, some of it unfairly. “Bedford,” as he was called, was born in 1821, a twin with a sister, the two of them being the oldest of eight children. His stubborn nature reared itself early in his life where he was a known fighter and brawler, exhibiting a fierce determination for personal success and a self-imposed code of ethics he impatiently expected others to follow. As a young man, his personal life was one of seeming moral contradictions: he gambled, brawled, and swore, but never touched alcohol, treated ladies with the utmost respect, and, though he called it “a religion for women,” he had the utmost respect for the Christian faith and Christian ministers. In a surviving letter to his son from late in the war, Forrest strongly implored his son to follow the example of his godly mother rather than his own sinful example.
When he left home, he tried a few lines of work before his found his fortune in two fields: agriculture and slave-trading. By the time the Civil War began in 1861, Forrest owned plantations and slaves cumulatively worth an estimated 1.5 million dollars. He was, by all worldly measures, a fantastic provider for his family.
When the Civil War began, the forty-year-old Forrest joined the Tennessee Mounted Rifles along with his brother and fifteen-year-old son. Bedford enlisted as a Private, but his aggressiveness and leadership abilities soon earned him a promotion to Lieutenant Colonel. Eventually rising to the rank of three-star General, Bedford was the fastest-climbing officer of the war on either side. With his calvary unit ready in personnel, and too impatient to wait on the government for supplies, Forrest rode into Union-controlled Kentucky and personally paid to outfit his entire regiment with horses, saddles, and guns. A great story can be read about his efforts to smuggle those goods out of Kentucky.
Forrest was engaged numerous times during the war, and earned the nickname “That Devil Forrest” from Gen. William T. Sherman, who promised a General’s commission to any person who could assassinate Forrest. Despite having no formal military education, he displayed an aptitude for military strategy that makes his tactics a topic of study even to this day. He led numerous Calvary charges and raids, often times against superior numbers. He personally led his men into hand-to-hand combat numerous times, having at least thirty confirmed kills in close quarters. Despite his reputation among the Union as a savage, Forrest sought regular counsel among his chaplains, who had almost as much influence on his later conversion as did his devout Presbyterian wife.
At the end of the war, Forrest disbanded his unit and sought whole-heartedly to do his part to mend the fences between North and South. He is often mistakenly identified as the founder of the Ku Klux Klan. He did demonstrate a level of involvement for a couple of years, and the then-decentralized Klan seized on his name recognition to incentivize recruitment. The Klan grew more and more radical in its intimidation tactics, both against blacks and white carpetbaggers, and by 1868, Forrest had written a letter publicly denouncing the Klan and encouraging its disbanding. Sadly, it had little effect. Forrest went to his grave saying he never publicly approved of the violence and intimidation tactics the Klan soon came to be well-known for.
Post-war prosperity did not come to Bedford Forrest as easily as it had before the war. He tried selling bonds and insurance, he tried his hand at being a railroad executive, and tried to go back into agriculture. All ventures met with limited success or outright failure.
Bedford Forrest had a godly mother who prayed for him and his salvation her entire life. Bedford’s wife Mary Ann was a devout Christian who patiently endured her husband’s bouts of temper and propensity to gamble, while interceding to God constantly on his behalf. Numerous other Godly men crossed his path, especially during the war, who planted the seeds of faith in his heart. On November 14, 1875, Bedford accompanied his wife to church and listened to the pastor preach a sermon on Matthew Chapter 7, the Parable of the Builders. After the sermon, an uncharacteristically tearful Bedford Forrest approached the pastor and said, “Sir, your sermon has removed the last prop from under me. I am the fool that built on the sand; I am a poor, miserable sinner.”
The Pastor instructed him to read Psalm 51, the Psalm of the repentant sinner, that evening and promised to call on him the next day. The following day, they discussed the sermon and the Psalm, and Bedford Forrest bowed his head and prayed with his pastor. After praying, the former general said, “All is right, I have put my trust in my Redeemer.”
Forrest still struggled with his temper from time to time, partially aggravated by his deteriorating health. One recounted incident involves him exploding with anger at a tailor who accidentally allowed one of his garments to become moth-eaten. Even though the tailor promised to make full restitution, Forrest pulled out his pistol and aimed it at the poor man’s head before leaving in a rage. The following day, he returned, broken, to ask forgiveness. Such an act of contrition would have been unthinkable in the violent-tempered Forrest of the Civil War, and shows the change God was continuing to work in his heart.
An overlooked, but very significant event happened in 1875, near the time of his conversion. Bedford Forrest was asked to speak to a Civil Rights group in Memphis called the Pole-Bearers Association (a fore-runner to the NAACP), the first white man invited to speak to a civil rights group. The full speech is short, but powerful and well before its time in terms of race relations. As he rose to speak, he accepted a bouquet of flowers from a young black girl named Lou Lewis. Some excerpts from his speech:
“…I accept the flowers as a
memento of reconciliation between the white and colored races of the southern
states…I came here with the jeers of some white people, who think that I am
doing wrong. I believe I can…assist the people
in strengthening fraternal relations, and shall do all in my power to elevate
every man and depress none.
Astoundingly, to an onlooker of the day, the former
racist, slave trader and decorated Confederate General then leaned down and gently
kissed Miss Lewis on the cheek, an unheard-of sentiment in that day. He was roundly ridiculed for it, but defended
his actions as stoutly as he defended any other action he took throughout the
course of his life.
Nathan Bedford Forrest is a man of contradictions, a villain turned saint. While his legacy continues to remain a source of debate on our national stage, he remains proof positive that while his sins were many, God’s grace was enough for even him. He died in late 1877 at the young age of 56, with his last thoughts and words directed to his beloved Mary Ann. At his funeral, people of all races lined the streets of Memphis to mourn him.
It is interesting to note that Bedford’s great-grandson, Nathan Bedford Forrest III, served in the US Army as a Brigadier General aviator and was killed in action in Germany in 1943. His body is buried in Arlington Cemetery, the last male descendant of the great Confederate general.
Kastler, Shane E., Nathan Bedford Forrest's Redemption, Pelican Books, 2010.
http://www.tennessee-scv.org/ForrestHistSociety/forrest_speech.html
